Factory Breakout

Sinclair Programs

June Mortimer

WE LOOK AT THE LATEST SPECTRUM RELEASES TO DISCOVER JUST WHAT JACK WAS DOING UP THAT BEANSTALK. FACTORY BREAKOUT The robot factory has been taken by aliens which have activated the factory's self-destruct mechanism. The only robot left is Zirky, and you must help him to evade the monsters and escape. The plot is thin, but this does not stop Factory Breakout being an enjoyable, if rather straightforward game. There are three playscreens. Each has an elaborate description but, basically, the idea of the first is to shoot the lines which grow around you. If you can prevent the lines from reaching you for a set period you move on to screen two which involves crossing the screen without hitting any one of three barriers. On the first level it is screen three which proves a problem. Your movement is restricted, there are aliens chasing you, and you have to pass through all the doors on the screen a number of times in order to finally obliterate them. The three screens become rather repetitive after a while, and the game does not have any features which make it outstanding among arcade-type games. Factory Breakout is produced for the 48K Spectrum by Poppysoft, [redacted] and costs £5.50.

Personal Computer News

Playability 4/5

Lasting Appeal 5/5

Use Of Machine 4/5

Overall Value 5/5

Bryan Skinner 5/5

NAME: Factory Breakout PRICE: £5.50 SYSTEM: Spectrum 48K PUBLISHER: Poppysoft, [redacted] FORMAT: Cassette OTHER VERSIONS: None OUTLETS: Mail order/retail QUIRKY ZIRKY The simplest games are often the best and this new release from Poppy Soft is a perfect example. OBJECTIVES You must help robot Zirky break out of a factory, since alien monsters have activated its self-destruct mechanism. IN PLAY There are three screens, but five skill levels. Alpha is the easiest and you'll certainly need low-level practice before attempting Beta, let alone Epsilon. The first screen shows Zirky in a white egg capsule in the centre of the screen. Surrounding Zirky are seven tunnels, along which deadly micron rays approach. A successful hit from a ray loses one of Zirky's three lives. You can rotate the capsule using the five and eight keys, and pressing zero fires Zirky's short range defence laser. The key combination is awkward and at Epsilon level steady nerves are called for. During the action a power column beneath the capsule grows up and finally Zirky hatches out into the very latest Zirkonium Mark 3 robot to be taken via conveyor belt to the second screen - the reject line. Here Zirky moves right and left across a floor supported by yellow columns. Reject rays descend from the ceiling at different rates according to the skill level. A yellow bird flaps back and forth beneath the floor, rising a little on each pass. It may look like a grinning, canary, but contact with it is lethal so it doesn't pay to hang about. The columns turn from yellow to white as Zirky crosses the floor, and at harder levels the conveyor belt plays strange tricks, so controlling Zirky's movement is extremely tricky. A successful traverse takes Zirky to the final screen. This is the lift room and consists of a sort of maze with openings left and right. Each level has coloured blocks which change colour should Zirky fall through. Moving Zirky to the sides of the room carries him up, and it's possible to slide him sideways onto one of the levels on the way. The aim here is to make all the doors change colour, then start again with another colour as in Qbert and variants. If you can get Zirky to one of the flashing force fields, the aliens turn white and are temporarily vulnerable, giving Zirky extra time to manoeuvre. Once the doors are removed, a bonus life is granted and Zirky returns to the reject room. At some point Zirky may discover a key which allows him to escape the factory, but that still eludes me. VERDICT Very good value for money. The screens may be simple, but they're uncluttered, nicely drawn and the action is smooth.

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

Getting Started 7/10

Graphics 7/10

Value 6/10

Playability 7/10

MACHINE: Spectrum SUPPLIER: Poppysoft PRICE: £5.50 Factory Breakout takes a pinch of Pac-Man, a twist of Reactor and mixes it all up in a final screen of one of the fastest climbing games I have played in the last week - and I've played a lot. Although borrowing it and pieces from other games, the overall design is original and reasonably entertaining. You are Zirky, the last remaining robot in a factory gone crazy. Can you help him escape? It won't be easy, though, as the whole place is patrolled by three homicidal Pac-monsters. Unlike the ghosts in the Pac-you-know, these nasties reappear seconds after you have killed them. Before duelling with the ghosts - which is the most enjoyable part of this game - you have to get through two preliminary screens which eventually become just a nuisance on your way to the main part of the game. The first prelim screen challenges a embryonic Zirky to survive an attack on all sides by killer rays. He has to spin round in his shell blasting the deathly fingers before they make contact with the shell and crack it. When Zirky hatches out into a fully grown droid, he has to dash through a corridor of laser spitting nasties to get into the key room. This is the fun part of Factory Breakout. It's quite tricky as your movements are limited - just left and right and up the moving lifts on the left and right of the frame. You can only go down by falling through the trap doors. The key to escape from the factory will eventually appear on this screen - but first you have to run over all the trapdoors, making them turn red, then blue before they eventually disappear. Sounds easy, but it's not. Mind you, I did get quite close after about two hours play which makes me slightly concerned about the lasting appeal of this game. Once you've got out of that factory, what does Zirky do next?

CrashCrash Smash

Use of Computer 85%

Graphics 89%

Playability 92%

Getting Started 85%

Addictive Qualities 91%

Originality 94%

Value For Money 92%

Overall 90%

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Producer: Poppy Soft Memory Required: 48K Retail Price: £5.95 Language: Machine code Author: Steve Crow Aliens have been blamed for a lot of things since Space Invaders replaced Tank, Pong and Tennis as a video game, but they haven't usually been blamed for causing strikes. In this new game from Poppy Soft, alien monsters have activated the self-destruct mechanism of the X-IAL robot factory. So all the other robots have gone on strike and only Zirky is left. Can you help him evade the monsters and break out of the factory? The game has three different screens and gets harder with each successfully completed go. In the first, Zirky is in his egg capsule at the centre of the screen. The factory's self-destruct mechanism is already firing deadly laser beams at him from seven directions. The rays progress slowly, giving him time to swivel round to each in turn and fire back with his defence laser. This stops the deadly rays for a moment only. Below him, a column of energy is rising up under the egg - when it reaches him, Zirky is saved, and transported out as a fully fledged Zirconium Mk III robot. Sadly, his transportation leads him on to the rejection line, where five overhead lasers keep firing. Zirky must pass them all safely. Each laser is made up of three vari-coloured beams, white being the fastest. If he spends too long in the rejection chamber a killer canary comes up to get him. In later screens this chamber may have conveyor belts. The third screen is a platform type with seven levels. On the top six there are two or three connecting doors to the next level down. A lift on either side of the platform complex takes Zirky up. He can exit at only two (different) levels on either side before reaching the top. Three monsters (on the first screen) inhabit this area and chase Zirky like mad. The idea is to change the colours of all the doorways by passing through them. This has to be done three times. At the ends of some corridors there are force fields, rather like power pills in a Pacman game, once eaten they disappear but allow you to kill off the monsters for a few moments. It all sounds quite simple, but on later levels, things are deteriorating in the factory - conveyor belts start up, not all in the same direction at the same time either - monsters are on the increase - in fact it begins to look like a normal day at any British factory. COMMENTS Control keys: 5/8 left/right, 0 to fire Joystick: Protek, AGF and Kempston Keyboard play: simple keys and responsive Use of colour: very good Graphics: excellent Sound: very good Skill levels: progressive through 5 levels Lives: 3 Screens: 3 Originality: highly original ideas

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